The Ideas of K.J. Parker's "The Siege" Trilogy

Great Men, impending genocide, kickass female leads and so much more.

Introduction: The City and Branding

Welcome! If you missed my post from last week introducing K.J. Parker, consider giving it a quick read as I'll be building off of a number of the topics therein today. I'm going to try to avoid spoilers where possible, but will look at the general premise of each book.

K.J. Parker's The Siege trilogy was my first exposure to the author almost three years ago, and my recent re-read of the series solidly reaffirmed my high opinion of it. The novels see Parker's typical deadpan narration stretched over significantly longer page lengths than his many short stories, but he retains his sharp voice and rhythm by introducing different aspects of his characters just in time for the various situations they encounter. This lends each the feeling of an unreliable narrator at times, though it almost always turns out they're just a little more devious and immoral than you thought.

Having just taken classes on attention-grabbing headlines, I found a new love for what Parker did with the titles in this series. Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City, narrated by Engineer Colonel Orhan, sounds exactly like a BuzzFeed listicle. How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It, narrated by actor and playwright Notker, is sure to be SEO-optimized for other pretender Emperors looking for advice. A Practical Guide to Conquering the World, narrated by foreign translator Felix, will certainly be the title of some future best-selling financial advice book – and I'm frankly surprised that Parker beat them to it.

Fan-made map of K.J. Parker’s fictional world, by Simon Regan

The books take place in Parker's usual world (if it is one world and not just a lot of repeated people and place names, see last week's post for more about that), focusing on the downfall of the mighty Robur empire (in purple above) and the siege of its glorious and storied capital, known only as The City.

The Robur Empire

As I wrote last week, there really aren't any 'good guys' in Parker's writing. That might sound a little strange when I go on to say that this trilogy follows the fate of the dark brown-skinned Robur people as they stare literal genocide in the face.

[As a brief aside, Parker introduces the Robur as derogatory-in-world 'blueskins' and foreigners like Orhan as derogatory-in-world 'milkfaces' and eventually moves to 'black/brown' and 'pale' as descriptors – while most other peoples' colouring goes entirely undescribed. It's all a little frustrating to parse, but I believe that 1) it is generally correct not to use 'Black' in this case as these characters have no relation to the history of Black people in our world, and 2) Parker wisely avoided writing about a systematic attack on white people in these books that came out between 2016-2022. Whether the backdrop of this story needed to be about race, and whether Parker executed it well beyond avoiding those two concerns, I'd love to discuss with someone more knowledgeable and qualified.]

But this series (and most of Parker's writing) is also deeply critical of pretty much all systemic power, so we learn that the Robur forged their prosperous empire out of centuries of violence and thrive off of indentured servitude and colonialism. The Anti-Robur Alliance, made up of many surrounding nations who have lived under Robur heels for centuries, now seek to eliminate what they see as an innately brutal and inhuman people. Are they so wrong?

Yes, obviously. One of the central morals of this trilogy is that the righteous revolutionaries of today will inevitably be the corrupt tyrants of tomorrow, and that has nothing to do with race. Plus, you know, genocide is fucking evil.

But also no; why continue to be subjugated and oppressed by these imperials who call you savages (everyone calls everyone else savages in this world) when you have the chance to break free?

Thus the near-absolutely gray morality of this series. But it is the Robur we are following, so who is it that steps up to face the impossible challenge of trying to save them?

Great Men

Another core aspect of this story is K.J. Parker's cynical fascination with the Great Man theory, which seeks to paint all human history in the actions of a few singularly influential figures. Each book follows a perfectly average man who sees the opportunity to pluck the strings of fate and goes on to pull them with all his strength, usually through grand tapestries of deception.

Colonel Orhan, Notker/Lysimachus, Felix – Generated with AI

Slave-turned-Colonel of Engineers Orhan is the odd one out, with Parker reversing his usual formula. Ingenious, devious and resourceful, Orhan barely manages to hold the fractious City against 150,000 enemies with only 4,000 engineers and a few civic employees to hold the walls. Yet his nature as a pale foreigner and lack of charisma mean his genuine accomplishments are barely recognized while they are happening, and certainly don't go down in history. (Not that he's a particularly good person or that he doesn't long for that recognition.)

The second book sees the near-broke actor and playwright Notker recruited to impersonate the influential Lysimachus (who, looking more the hero, was given credit for Orhan's defense of the City). The third has translator Felix in faraway Echmen learn of the apparent extinction of his people and link up with the numerous but underestimated Dejauzi (not entirely unlike Daenerys with the Dothraki) people to reshape the world.

Both of these men also accomplish Great things in the end, by solidifying power as Lysimachus and becoming the prophet of a powerful new religion respectively, but it is incredibly amusing to see how self-preservation and occasional avarice are what lead them every step of the way.

Whether good or bad, remembered by history or forgotten, each of these three men had a remarkable impact on the world. But unlike the theory, they certainly didn't do it alone.

Kick-ass Female Leads

According to Notker, what people want in a good story is: "something that looks at first sight like real life, but which actually turns out to be a fairy tale with virtue triumphant, evil utterly vanquished, a positive, uplifting message, a gutsy, kick-ass female lead and, if at all possible, unicorns."

In typical Parker fashion, he does his level best not to follow this advice – even those short stories that include different kinds of magic don't feature any unicorns, let alone anything fairy tale-adjacent – except, to some degree, for the female leads. Both Notker and Felix's stories are indelibly twined with their female counterparts, while Orhan once again differs slightly.

Aichma, Hodda, She Stomps Them Flat – Generated with AI

Aichma is the proprietor of the Two Dogs, a bar which Orhan favours and which plays an important role as a neutral ground between the rival factions within The City. She is introduced as the daughter of Orhan's long-dead friend, but his protectiveness of her over the course of the book – at one point prioritizing learning about her individual safety over that of the entire City – eventually calls that into question. She plays the role of cynical (almost more characteristic of these three than any biological marker of gender) sounding board for Orhan in addition to being one of the small group of friends he is fighting so hard to save.

Hodda is an actress and theatre owner in The City who ends up marrying Notker-as-Lysimachus very much in order to fill the role of Empress to his Emperor. I don't love her and could spend a number of paragraphs ranting about the reasons why, but that would necessitate a lot more spoilers, so I'll shelve it for another time. Suffice to say that she really doesn't offer much more than cynicism to the story, yet gets by far the most screen time of the women in this story.

Thirdly is She Stomps Them Flat, Dejauzi princess and Felix's ticket to survival and conquest. She's probably the least cynical of the three and has at least as much personality and intelligence as Aichma, but I still would have liked her to have more of an active role in her own story.

And that's the overall theme here, really. They're (mostly) good, functional characters, and none are even romantic interests, but Parker's exploration of the Great Man trope doesn't leave much room for them to really shine.

Sawdust – Generated with AI

But wait, a secret fourth approaches! Sawdust is the daughter of indentured servants in the city who has a knack for engineering, and becomes instrumental to rapidly implementing and improving Orhan's siege weapons during the defense of The City. It's remarkable to see a female character just genuinely kicking ass in this series – she's easily among my favourite characters, and it's criminal that she's not mentioned again after the first book.

Sashan Truth...

Towards the end of the third book, Parker raises the idea of truth in the Sashan Empire; namely that whatever the Sashan Emperor & associated authority says is the absolute, objective truth. It is fascinating and I knew I needed to discuss it in this post, so gathered a bunch of quotes and prepared perfectly-considered comparisons to our own world.

And, just as the hunchbacked Sashan Emperor could best 10,000 men in combat and just as they have never lost a single battle, I have fulfilled my wish and will certainly not need to save that topic for another time. Utterly false.

Thanks for reading! I hope you consider checking out this series; I especially recommend the audiobooks, the narrator for which perfectly captures Parker's sardonic tone. Cheers!